<h1>Ulysses -- Lord Alfred Tennyson</h1>
It little profits that an idle king,<br />
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,<br />
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole<br />
Unequal laws into a savage race,<br />
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
<P>
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink<br />
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed<br />
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those<br />
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when<br />
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades<br />
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;<br />
For always roaming with a hungry heart<br />
Much have I seen and known--cities of men<br />
And manners, climates, councils, governments,<br />
Myself not least, but honored of them all--<br />
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,<br />
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.<br />
I am a part of all that I have met,<br />
Yes all experience is an arch wherethrough<br />
Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades<br />
For ever and for ever when I move.<br />
How dull it is to pause; to make an end.<br />
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!<br />
As though to breathe were life,. Life pilled on life<br />
Were all too little, and of one to me<br />
Little remains, but every hour is saved<br />
From that eternal silence, something more,<br />
A bringer of new things; and vile it were<br />
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,<br />
And this gray spirit yearning in desire<br />
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,<br />
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
<P>
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,<br />
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle--<br />
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill<br />
This labor by slow prudence to make mild<br />
A rugged people, and through soft degrees<br />
Subdue them to the useful and the good,<br />
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere<br />
Of common duties, decent not to fail<br />
In offices of tenderness, and pay<br />
Meet adoration to my household gods,<br />
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
<P>
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;<br />
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,<br />
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me--<br />
That ever with a frolic welcome took<br />
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed<br />
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old,<br />
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.<br />
Death closes all; but something ere the end,<br />
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,<br />
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.<br />
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;<br />
The long day wanes, the slow moon climbs; the deep<br />
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends<br />
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world,<br />
Push off, and sitting well in order smite<br />
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds<br />
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths<br />
Of all the western stars, until I die.<br />
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;<br />
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,<br />
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew,<br />
Though much is taken, much abides; and though<br />
We are not now that strength which in old days<br />
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are we are:<br />
One equal temper of heroic hearts,<br />
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will<br />
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
